who gathered there were for the most part silent, reverential, and intensely in earnest. They drank of the water, many washed their hands, and some pulled up their sleeves and bathed their arms with the flow from this fount of life. Often they filled bottles or cans to carry home with them for their own further use or for the cure of relatives and friends. Immediately in front of the grotto were several rows of settees, and for the devotees this was the favorite gathering-place, though some liked better the dusk of the grotto interior, and others sat afar off on a continuous seat which was part of a parapet skirting the Gave. Among the most constant of the concourse before the cavern during my stay was a priest and his old mother, in whom I took a special interest, because they had arrived at Lourdes in the train which brought me, traveling in my apartment. The priest had a dreadful hacking cough, and it was for his welfare, not the old mother's, that they had come. He was a cold, hard-featured man, but he looked gritty, and was plainly determined to fight his ill health to the bitter end-and how the mother loved him! Every time the cough caught in his throat the tears came to the old woman's weak eyes, and she bowed forward and looked at the Virgin in heartfelt supplication. So they sat hour after hour, he in the black robes of his order, she in the black garments of an old woman, thinking, hoping, praying. Some of the worshipers fell on their knees to beseech the intervention of Heaven in behalf of themselves or their loved ones. Usually they knelt far up in front, sometimes grasping the bars of the fence before the grotto, sometimes a little further back, with arms extended and eyes on the mute marble figure in the rock above. Once in a while there were those who humbled themselves to a still greater degree, and bowed down and kissed the paving. The people were of all sorts, those ill in body and those ill in mind; and some who came had no trouble other than the feebleness of old age. Once, while I sat looking on, a young man of the bourgeois class, accompanied by his wife and little girl, approached the grotto. The mother with some difficulty induced the little one to curtsey to the statue of the Virgin, then left her in the care of the father while she went to kneel near the entrance to the grotto. The child toddled about for a few moments, and then in some way tripped and fell so that her head struck the paving with a good deal of violence. She broke into a loud wail of pain and fright; the mother jumped to her feet and ran to the spot. the father caught up the little girl in his arms, and every one in the audience was in a tremor of regret and sympathy. At once humanity was full of compassion and every heart was stirred; but the white figure and the grotto, with all their supernatural powers of healing, were untouched and gave no sign. A great bump rose on the child's forehead, and the parents kissed her and tried to comfort her, and they let the water of the fountain flow on the hurt, and then they laid on wet handkerchiefs and went away. child's sobs grew faint in the distance, and quiet again brooded over the place. There stood the white figure in its niche; there was the dark grotto under the high, vine-draped cliff; the little flames were eating down into the tallow on the candletips, the water tinkled from the brass faucets, the leaves rustled on the great trees, and wavering shadows contested with the burning sunshine on the stone paving. A human atom had been hurt, but there was no visible indication that it made a particle of difference to either deity or nature. The That marvelous cures are made at Lourdes is beyond question, but that these are due to the miraculous power of the place and not primarily to some wholly natural mental or physical change in the persons cured is not so clear. Every one to be treated in the baths comes provided with a certificate from a doctor, sometimes from several doctors. If a cure takes place, the cured one goes to the verification office not far from the baths, the certificate is examined, and the patient's past condition compared with the present to see if the benefit is real. But was the patient's doctor correct in his diagnosis, is the cure permanent, and is there any assurance that the Lourdes examiners are infallible or even disinterested? W BY FLORENCE MORSE KINGSLEY Author of "Titus," "Stephen," "Paul," "The Cross Triumphant," etc. HEN the new moon hung in the sky and all Jerusalem feasted, Chomet was wont to tear from among his rags a narrow strip which he knotted to his girdle. He did this quite in secret, and for reasons which perhaps he could not himself have told; but this much he knew-every faded shred represented a month of misery added to his dreary and hopeless life. Sometimes, as he lay upon his mat in the crowded and filthy hut which afforded him shelter from the night in common with a score of other beggars, he would stealthily count the knots. There were now more than four hundred of them, and the girdle would afford space for only one-or at most two—more. Chomet had believed vaguely for many a year that when his girdle was quite filled with these tokens of worn-out moons something strange and wonderful would befall him. Of late this slow-approaching event appeared to him in the guise of a release from the bed whereon he lay, increasingly wretched and helpless as the months rolled by. Thrice in one moon had he dreamed of walking—yes, running, light and active as the half-naked children who swarmed like insects in the crowded streets hard by the Sheep Market. In this dream he beheld a great pool of water, blood-red, into which he plunged headlong, awaking with a shuddering shriek to find himself motionless, withered, a ghastly thing, death-bound yet horribly alive. Chomet was able, by means of his hands and arms, which were abnormally powerful, to drag this hateful and motionless bulk from place to place, albeit with the sluggish and difficult motions of the snail. Hence his name, Chomet-the snail. He knew no other. Each hopeless morning he would bind upon his back the filthy mat upon which he slept, and set forth on his tortuous way through the narrow too fierce for large individual profits; also, there were ailments and deformities far more picturesque and convincing to the careless passer-by than was mere paralysis. As Chomet lay unnoticed upon his mat, he came to look with particular rancor upon a certain blind man, who wore a scarlet rag bound about his head, and from whose girdle depended a score of brass cups upon which he clinked a musical accompaniment to his long-drawn, dolorous cries for alms. One day Chomet came upon a camelwhip, dropped in the dust of the street by some careless driver. He hid it in his bosom with a cry of joy. Later, when the blind beggar passed, feeling his cau tious way with his trusty staff, he fell headlong upon the stones at the withered feet of the paralytic. The blind man arose, spitting out vile imprecations with the filth of the highway; but Chomet lay quite still and quiet upon his rug, the wicked braid of thongs hid once more in his bosom. As it chanced, the blind beggar crossed his path no more. But there were others to hate, and Chomet hated them with all his heart. During Passover week he dreamed again and yet again of walking, erect, free, and at ease. This time he told his vision to Sechu, the Egyptian astrologer, who drove his mystic trade hard by the Gate of Flocks. Sechu exacted from Chomet three farthings, the whole of his gains for the day, and, having bestowed them in his own weightier pouch, he told him the meaning of the dream. 66 "The interpretation thereof is clear as the sun at noonday," declared Sechu, after he had muttered many strange sayings in an unknown tongue. The bloodred pool of the vision is no other than the Pool of Mercy, distant not a stone's throw from this gate. Thither must thou go, and plunge into its waters at the moment when the angel of the fountain shall descend. So shalt thou be healed, and walk and run as thou hast dreamed," The beggar tore at his hair and beard in a fury. "Shall I lie on the stones of the street to-night, and hug the hungerwolf to my breast because of this lie?" he cried. "Who knows better than thou, dog of an Egyptian, that for a score of years I have waited in the porch of Bethesda and without profit! Give me back my money, or I will curse thee !" "Hast thou also bathed in its waters, as I have said?" inquired the astrologer, smoothly; "if thou hast not, why callest thou me a liar? Get thee hence, swine of a Jew, and obey a favorite of Osiris; so shalt thou walk-ay, and run!" With that he seized his staff and shook it threateningly in the face of the paralytic. Chomet lifted his lean arms to heaven and cursed the astrologer by the Temple, and by Moses, and by all the prophets. He also pronounced upon him the great Anathema, swearing it by the five books of the Law and by the seven-branched candlestick of the Holy Place, than which there is no curse more terrible. Then he dragged himself painfully away to a certain noisome hole under a black archway and hugged the hungerwolf to his breast all night. He slept fitfully, and dreamed again and again of the blood-red, bubbling pool, and of himself, mad with horror, running swiftly to escape something which pursued him from behind. At daybreak he awoke, drenched with clammy sweat, after the most terrible vision of them all. "I ran as the wind for swiftness," he muttered to himself, staring with lack-luster eyes at his with ered feet," as the wind; yet I could not escape. I plunged into the pool, and the pool was fire!" Nevertheless, because he was accustomed to the place, and because in truth he had nowhere else to go, after a time he dragged himself toward the Porch of Mercy. The Pool of Bethesda-called indifferently the Mercy Pool-was in reality nothing more nor less than a great cistern or reservoir, hewn in the limestone rock, and divided by a pier of masonry five feet in thickness. There were thus twin pools, one of which derived its supply of water from the yearly rains, while in the midst of the other an intermittent spring welled up, bubbling actively at undetermined periods, and again lying stagnant under the burning sky like a mirror of brass. At such times the water in this half of the reservoir became tinged with a curious dusky red. Many theories were advanced to account for these facts, both among the wise and learned of the time and among the vast herd of the unlearned and superstitious. "The pool," declared certain of the rabbis, was connected by a secret, subterranean conduit with the great altar of Sacrifice in the Temple; thus, after the numerous offerings at feast times, when the altar was drenched again and again with blood and water, this conduit belched forth its sacred contents into the midst of the Mercy Pool, purifying and enduing it with miraculous power, insomuch that whoever first stepped into its flood at this favored moment was instantly healed of whatever disease tormented his body." But the story oftenest told, and believed, by the unhappy multitude of the afflicted who frequented the five great porticoes, was that of a beneficent angel, who descended at times to bathe in the waters, which leaped up bubbling with ecstasy at touch of his heavenly wings and garments. Once in ages past-so ran the legenda learned rabbi named Aziel was sitting at the verge of this pool contemplating its waters, which even in those far-off days were possessed of marvelous healing power. As Aziel was thus engaged in prayer and holy meditation, the angel of the fountain appeared to him and told him that a foul demon had taken forcible possession of the pool, with the intent to work great mischiefs among the people of Jerusalem. "Go thou," said the angel, "gather all the strong men of the city and fetch them hither. Let them be armed with staves of the white oak and with iron flails, and let them beat the water till it becomes red with blood. So shall the evil one be destroyed, and I, even I, the spirit of healing, will descend to it as before." The people obeyed the voice of the rabbi and beat the waters of the pool diligently, from morning until evening, with staves of the white oak and with iron flails. And, lo, when the sun was setting the waters became red like blood! So was the demon slain, and the angel descended ever more to sanctify the pool. But Chomet knew the story well; more times than he could count had he dragged him self to the Porch of Mercy and waited for that strange moving of the waters. never-though he had begged and threatened and prayed the unheeding throng about him-had he been suffered to so much as dip his finger into the pool at the favored instant. Always there was a frenzied rush and cry when the mysterious bubbling took place. More than once sandaled feet had trampled mercilessly upon his shriveled body as he lay at the verge of the pool. On one occasion he had been actually pushed into the water by the struggling crowd-but not first. He was dragged out, choking and half strangled, by one of the Temple police who guarded the place, in time to hear the loud cries of rejoicing with which a lame man celebrated his restoration. "Is there no one who will help me to the water?" he cried aloud, beating upon his lean breast in a frenzy. "Sons of Abraham chosen of Jehovah! have pity on one stricken for the space of eight and thirty years! Hear me, Israelites, while I swear that I am the bondservant of the man who liberates me from this chain !" And on this wise he besought the multitude day after day. But his entreaties fell upon unheeding ears. The air was already dissonant with strident clamor; cries of anguish, of fear, of dying, rose ever in a mighty wail to the unanswering heavens. Chomet continued to add his dismal note to this pæan of misery, hoping for nothing; for hope and love lay dead in his soul these many years. But hate lived on. On this day Chomet lay on his mat beneath the portico, which was already crowded to suffocation, for it was confidently expected that the water, long stagnant, would be troubled. He had not been able to force his way near the pool, but lay close to the streetward side with closed eyes, sending forth his hopeless supplications. "For eight and thirty years, good masters," he shrilled; "for eight and thirty years life and death alike have passed me by! Put me in the water once-only once! For the love of heaven, ye who have feet, behold me with compassion !" A young man who was walking swiftly through the street of Bethesda paused at sound of this cry. Then he crossed the narrow space where the hot sunshine lay, and paused again in the shadow of the Porch of Mercy. He could have touched the livid, unseeing face of Chomet; the withered feet and limbs of the paralytic lay bare and repulsive in the strong morning light. The young man gazed at this horrible figure of despair long and earnestly, and as he looked tears filled his large eyes. He stooped and touched the beggar lightly upon the breast. "Wilt thou be made whole?" he asked. Chomet opened his bleared eyes and stared dully at his questioner. Then, perceiving that the stranger was both young and strong, he made answer: "Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool; but when I am coming, another steps down before me.' "Rise, take thy bed, and walk!" It was again the vision, thought Chomet confusedly, for he was now standing upon his feet; his limbs moved freely. Assuredly it was the vision! Mechanically he stooped and took up the mat upon which he had lain. The man had bidden him do this. Never before had he dreamed of a man, but only of the pool. A man? There was no man. He stared stupidly about him for an instant, then walked slowly away, his bed hugged close to his breast. After a time he walked faster, he did not notice whither; a delirium of joy came gradually to possess him. He gave vent to strange, inarticulate cries, and walked faster and ever faster. Here was a broad street leading upward to a beautiful and stately building-vast, magnificent, its peaks and pinacles gleaming with white and gold like sun-smitten mountain crests. He knew it it was the Temple. Well, he would go there. Never before, even in a dream, had he visited the Temple since the half-forgotten days of his boyhood. A great longing came upon him to hear once more the blare of silver trumpets and the long-drawn, swinging chant of the Levites, assembled in snowy mazes upon the Steps of Degrees. Other men were going there also, men with long robes and solemn faces, walking slowly; some also were coming away. Chomet brushed past them impatiently; Three oaken staves placed squarely across his path brought the flying feet to a standstill. Chomet stared at them angrily. "Let me pass!" he cried, shaking his matted head from side to side. "I am going to the Temple!” The bearers of the staves were sternlooking men with long beards. They wore fringed talliths of blue and white, and upon their foreheads were broad phylacteries made of black calfskin. They regarded Chomet with burning eyes of wrath. "This is the Sabbath day!" they said loudly. "It is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed." Chomet looked stupidly down at the mat, which he still hugged close to his breast. Then he dropped it to the ground with a loud laugh, and flung his arms into the air, snapping his fingers and gesticulating like one drunk with new wine. "This is no dream!" he cried. "This bed is real! These stones are real! Ah-I am Arnon -once more Arnon the Swift-no longer the Snail! I am healed! Look you, good sirs, at my hands, hard as the hoofs of a goat! For eight and thirty years have I dragged myself about Jerusalem upon these hands,' while other walked--yes, walked and ran!” "What has all this to do with carrying thy bed on the Sabbath day?" men had happened in Jerusalem of late-things which accorded with neither Mishna nor Talmud. What man is that which said unto thee, 'Take up thy bed, and walk'?" they asked, with incisive emphasis. Chomet shook his head. "I cannot tell who it was," he said, staring about him, still in a maze of wonder. "I lay in the porch of the Pool of Mercy, good sirs, waiting for the moving of the waters-not that I hoped to be healed; no, there was always a multitude before me. Look you, masters, at my girdle here! Every separate knot counts for a moon of helplessness, and some are worn thin with years. But what matters it; I am well now! I can walk-aye, more, I can run ! Let me go, I pray thee, honored sirs; I am only Chomet, and poor and ragged and hungry, as you see." Something of the beggar's whine had crept back into tone and gesture, as he cowered beneath the searching eyes of the rabbis. "Only a farthing I ask of you, worshipful masters, and may the blessings of Jehovah overtake you!" "Tell us now who it was that bade thee carry thy bed on the Sabbath day," said the taller of the rabbis, glancing significantly at his companions, "and three pieces of silver shall be thine straightway." Three pieces of silver! Never in all his life had Chomet possessed such a sum. And now also he could walk. Three pieces of silver! There were evil pleasures, forgotten for many a year, within his very grasp. "Honorable and worshipful masters," he said, spreading abroad his hands, his wary eyes shifting from face to face, "what would I not perform to serve you-and for three pieces of silverah! But, alas, I have told you the truth! I swear it by the soul of my father and by the fire of the great altar! The man did but touch me upon the breast-so." laid a grimy forefinger upon the spotless tallith of one of the rabbis, who shook off the polluting touch with a shuddering execration. He Chomet, perceiving that he had offended, again abased himself to the dust. "The man touched me as I have said, honorable masters. 'Wilt thou be made whole?' he asked. "And I? I said to him, most truly, that there was no one to put me into |